When I was using FeedLounge for my feed reading, I used NetNewsWire to handle a set of private feeds (some of my own data stats, local feeds from my machine, etc.). When I left FeedLounge, I went back to NetNewsWire as my primary feed reader, using the syncing feature¹ which connects to the NewsGator servers to get data – something that doesn’t work well for my private and local feeds. I needed a second feed reader.

I initially used Shrook, which I’d played with long ago back when it and NNW were in their infancy. I used Shrook for a few months, but never really liked it. In particular I didn’t like the way the content was displayed and the additional column (4 column layout instead of 3).

Recently I tried NewsFire and NewsLife. NewsFire was nagging the heck out of me before I even really tried it out, so I trashed it. NewsLife does some innovative stuff with the presentation (showing summaries, etc.), but it was stuff I didn’t really care for.

I think I’ve settled on a secondary reader now: Vienna. Vienna doesn’t do anything particularly special, but it has a nice clean 3 column layout and it formats the content nicely. Really, it does a good job at presenting data and staying out of the way – just what I was looking for.

1. It really bugs me that I have to remember to quit each NNW instance when I’m done with it. So much that I might go back to a web based reader at some point. [back]